Twitter users support two cyclists on a 4,000 km journey through India

Two cycle enthusiasts will travel 4,400 km starting on July 19 to spread awareness on girls' education and raise Rs. 50 lakh for the cause.

Aug 20, 2016 15:13 IST

India cycleReuters

Twitter users have come out in support of two cyclists riding from Kanyakumari to Khardung La in Jammu and Kashmir on bamboo bikes. The cycle enthusiasts will traverse the entire length of India (4,400 km) to spread awareness on education of girls with an aim to raise Rs. 50 lakh for the cause. They started their journey on July 19.

Prisilya Madan, a computer science post graduate student, and Sumeet Paringe, an engineer, embarked on this 63-day eco-friendly journey to support education for 1,500 girls for one year.

"Driven by passion and determination, the only thing they need now, is your support," reads the campaign posted on Fuel-a-dream, a crowd-funded platform to raise funds for various causes.

The campaign has been organised by IIMPACT, an IIM Ahmedabad alumni initiative, with a focus on providing education opportunities to girl children from socio-economically backward communities with no access to schools. The 1,500 girl children have been enrolled in IIMPACT centres across Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha and West Bengal, according to the campaign page.

The campaign is being supported by Godrej Group, which created the bamboo-framed bike design.

With 45 days remaining for the journey to come to an end, the campaign has already raised more than 50 percent of the targeted Rs. 50 lakh from 104 people at the time of writing this article.

The campaign has set rewards for different levels of contributions. A Rs. 500 contribution will receive a shoutout on Facebook, whereas if a person makes a contribution of Rs. 1 lakh, the IIMPACT centre will be named after that person.

The campaign has been organised keeping in mind the gender disparity revealed by Census 2011 figures on education in India. While rural literacy rate among males stood at 71 percent, female literacy rate did not cross even the 50 percent mark, according to the Census data.

Child sex ratio, the number of girls to boys in the 0-6 age group, stood at 914 as per the Census 2011, which makes it the lowest since India's independence.